UW Explorers Dot Net

Mon Tinggi Malaysia

Another plane ride, and a days worth of driving has found us on the small island of Sibu, in the South China sea.  The water is a lovely emerald colour and a warm 86 degrees (30C) for a surface temperature.  Suprisingly there is a thermalclin so to speak where the temp drops by 2 degrees as you descend through the 5 foot mark.  Mon Tinggi is a little tropical island that is a wash at times about 30 minutes by boat from here.  The depth around this island is a mer 6 – 7 meters.  But the coral and marine life is simply amazing.  Our dive last an easy 60 minutes and we all ascended in the 100 bar region of our air supply so there was plenty of bottom time still available.  We saw two cuttle fish a couple of puffer fish and a large number of various groupers and angel fish.  Though not a very challenging dive it was a very good time! 

Dive the Koot and Koh Sak West

The 4th of October had me going out on a charter with Aquanauts Dive center in Pattaya. I was picked up at the Guest House I am staying at here in Jomtien beach and 07:30 sharp, the actual time I was suppose to be picked up at which is nice. We made our way in Pattaya to meet up with everyone at the shop. By the time I arrived everyone had met up, and ready to head out to the pier to board the dive boat. Once on board the dive boat, I was taken along side with the Divemaster and received an private dive brief that was very well presented.

I was asked if I would like to dive the Koot, a ship that was sunk as an artificial reef some 3 – 4 years ago, she is resting at around 27 meters, and there is a very strong current. I am always up for a wreck dive….so of course I wanted to go. We entered the water from the bow with a giant stride, and that is when it was quite obvious that there was a strong current. I grabbed the tag line and pulled myself to the descent line where we were tied off at. As we descended down the line, I felt like a flag flapping in the breeze as the current ripped past us. Once down on the wreck, thankfully it was a landing craft so we could drop down in the personnel area and out of the current. We took our time as we headed aft….checking out the cut outs and various doors and port holes cut into the ship. Overall it was a good dive…and the 86 degree temperatures at depth was a nice change to the temps I am use to back in Canada.

Dive two had us in the shallows at Koh Sak West. We spent a lovely 60 minutes swimming amongst the corals and other marine life….oh and did I saw the Sea Turtles as well!